Can another copy of the list come out already. Obviously everyone is repping their main character only giving out 1 fact at a time but I'm not convinced that because of just one fact that should be enough to up that characters spot on the list. Don't tell me Zelda is good at killing vertical yet you fail to mention how good Zelda does overall vs MK Give us FACTS that support why (insert character) should go higher on the list!!!!
Gee, I'm sorry for not providing a full ****ing synopsis for you. Shame on me for being happy about where my character is and for not making a contribution, instead of being like you and.... oh, wait a sec:
And Marth is under Zelda and Lucario?? Yeah really plaease change this around. It is really inaccurate.
Nice contribution there! Kinda like the rest of your posts in this thread. "Hey, move ____ up, he's good. Move ____ down, he sucks." You're one to talk.
But you know what, enough of my snide remarks. Here goes:
First and foremost, understand that Zelda's moves, when they're not DI'd out of/sourspotted, are pretty ****ing deadly. From the middle of FD, given the general best DI that I could manage as one person, Zelda is killing MK:
- off the side with Dsmash at 120%
- off the top with ftilt at 105%
- off the side with Fsmash at 100%
- off the top with utilt at 89% (grounded, so there's an angle that MK is sent at - hit with the top part of utilt for a lower kill than Usmash)
- off the top with Usmash at 88%
- off the top with uair at 74% (MK is grounded here, so it's going to kill at lower damages in real matches)
- off the side with fair at 69%
- off the side with bair at
62%
Note that this is in the center of FD, and these are all fresh,
in a real match. As for a single decay prior to killing (taking into account the moves that I feel would generally be decayed anyway):
- off the side with Dsmash at 132%
- off the top with Fsmash at 118%
- off the side with Usmash at 100%
- off the side with fair at 83%
- off the side with bair at 78%
The rest simply do not matter enough because they're either not used for much of anything but killing or low % combos, or they have other factors that just make this too complicated. (uair, for example, will pretty much never be decayed and hitting MK a second time when he's grounded, so who really cares about that?) He also dies sooner on Battlefield, Smashville, and some CP stages, so you can lower these %s even more if they have less distance for MK to shoot off, thus making her killing power look even better.
Miscellaneous info that helps Zelda look a little flashier:
- Her ftilt, when angled up, still equates, if not beats, all of MK's aerials in range. This angled ftilt can be used to trade hits or just flat out stop MK with SH approaches. However, it's not something that can easily be relied on, so it's not exactly a gamebreaking strategy.
- Her dtilt. Fresh, it can start a lock on MK at 50%, and the MK player must do his best to get out of it by DIing properly away from Zelda. If the move is too fresh and/or if MK's damage is too high, it'll just pop him up in the air with enough hitstun for Zelda to Usmash, utilt, or ftilt MK, It's also a pretty much guaranteed follow-up for Dsmash, as Dsmash comes out one frame sooner.
- She has a few attacks that can break the tornado. Her most viable one is Usmash. Might as well just... move away or shield, though...
- Her out-of-shield options are fantastic. Basically, Usmash, Dsmash, dtilt, fair, bair, nair, and Nayru's Love cover pretty much every situation for her when she needs to leave her shield. Two of those options are the earliest killing aerials in the game, two of them are some of the fastest smash attacks in the game, one can lead into pretty much the larger portion of MK's stock, and the other two are just basic answers that are kinda situational but still usable.
Anyway, as for the actual fight, MK still has an advantage on Zelda. His attacks have nice range and speed on them and a lot of them don't clank. Neither do Zelda's disjointed attacks for that matter, but she has a harder time against swordies in the first place. MK barely outranges Zelda on the ground as far as I know, with dtilt and ftilt generally having a bit more range than Zelda's Fsmash, but her range is still good. Their smash attacks are very identical here, actually. MK's Dsmash is like a slightly buffed Zelda Dsmash (but Zelda's still comes out one frame faster, yay!), MK's Fsmash is worse than Zelda's in every aspect except you can't DI out of his, and his Usmash is slightly weaker and slightly slower than Zelda's. His tilts are his best option for racking up damage on Zelda when he's grounded, along with his better grab, better ground mobility, and somewhat equal throws.
In the air, he still wins (but so do a lot of characters vs. Zelda). However, all it really takes is one well-placed aerial to kill off MK, or at the very least to get him off of Zelda's case for a while. She's weak from below, so he can try to take advantage of that, but slightly poor spacing from his uair can cause him to eat a dair right to the face. Generally speaking, Zelda will prefer to not try to fight back in this position. MK's aerial mobility is not that good; as with the other two Kirby characters, this basically helps her land her kicks on MK. I think I'll just end the aerial combat by saying MK has an advantage in the air, but one mistake can prove fatal, as Zelda is still the queen (princess >_>) of insanely powerful aerials (when sweetspotted, of course), and they put him to rest very early on.
When it comes to edgeguarding Zelda, it should be noted that Zelda's recovery, for all of its faults, will get her past an MK off-stage safely if she warps ahead of time. That said, MK can just wait for her on the other end like most people do to attempt a punish. Other than that, his typical gimp tactics don't work all that well vs. Zelda because her Up B alone still provides excellent distance and a hitbox. Being floaty also helps her to live a bit longer from the sides, and that said, she actually does live a bit longer than MK in this fight.
As for edgeguarding MK, Din's Fire sees some use here. It's typically used when no other move can reach a character somewhere in a top corner of a stage. It's also used against certain characters that float (Peach), are stuck in a certain mode when they Up B (Robot, Pit) and against gliders (Pit, Charizard, and MK). MK's glide attack can clank with Din's, but the point here is he can't glide at her safely. Other than that, it's not really possible to edgeguard MK viably.
So when you look at all of this, you may think, "Wow, what a subpar match-up for Zelda. It looks more like 65:35 or even 70:30 MK! What gives?" The three main reasons, in my opinion, as to why Zelda actually fares quite well against MK (when compared to a large portion of the cast) are:
- Having an answer to everything he has, though obviously she answers to some things (his aerials) better than others (his recovery).
- Having the killing power to get rid of MK early in a stock, as his lightness is still a factor. It's a factor in every fight of course, but Zelda's killing power is now even more fearsome
- Having the attack speed and range to
compete with MK's. Their aerials are vastly different, but on the ground, a lot of Zelda's attacks do indeed have some nice speed on them. It's not spectacular, but at the same time, it's nothing to scoff at. Honestly, for the power that her moves have, Zelda's attacks have nice start-up speed, and a lot of her attacks aren't really all that laggy, and of her laggiest ones (Fsmash, Usmash, utilt), only utilt leaves her exposed for a long period of time.
MK still soundly has an advantage on her, but the bottom line is that he needs to make as few mistakes as possible because Zelda is one of the best punishing characters in the game, overall. She doesn't require a favorable stage or "something else" to lay down a punish unlike the Ice Climbers, and she doesn't require a lot of hits to kill him off, meaning she doesn't need that many opportunities to punish in order to succeed. Her recovery is punishable, but she's not that easy to gimp when she's trying to make it back to the stage, unless she is forced to recover low. Her attacks and range are still good, and her defensive abilities (shield, spotdodge, roll, and airdodge), combined, are good. (I believe she has the best spotdodge and airdodge in the game... that is, if Melee's airdodge transfered just fine for her.)
Zelda is deserving of a high tier placement. She should NOT move down. There should be some characters that might be able to move ahead of her (Olimar, in my opinion), but she should not have to move down on her own accord. As for your Marth comment, I believe that in terms of match-up numbers, it's another 60:40 at worst for Marth, but I'm not going to speak for him.
